Soon, after the beginning of the occupation by the Germans of Lithuania in June 1941,several German officers and about 50-60 soldiers arrived in Pakruojis on Saturday 28 June 1941.

The Jews then had to wear yellow stars. They were watched and guarded by the so called white arm banders *), all men belonging to  the squad of Petras Pozela, formerly a lawyer. Members of his group were: Gigevičius, Simkevičius, Zinkevičius, Lipskis and Dojokas.

*)The white armbanders were the supporters of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), a coalition of political parties established in Nazi Germany by Lithuanian emigres who were political leaders in their country who escaped to Nazi Germany when, or shortly after, the Soviet occupation of Lithuania on June 15, 1940.

The LAF was established with the blessing of the Nazis and under their aegis and the LAF in turn fully supported the Third Reich and their staunchly anti-Semitic agenda.

Prior to the Nazi invasion of Lithuania, the LAF sent messages into the country calling upon Lithuanians to "settle scores" with the Jews and which declared that the day of reckoning with Lithuanian Jewry was rapidly approaching and that the rights of residence in Lithuania granted to Jews by Gediminas (in the 14th century) would soon be repealed.

These exhortations found practical expression in a wave of violence launched against Lithuanian Jews  in more than forty communities EVEN BEFORE the arrival of the German troops.

Following the invasion of the Wehrmacht, it was the white armbanders who in many locations carried out pogroms against the local Jews. Until the organization of the Lithuanian collaborators into organized units, which were initially called National Labour Defence Battalions and later Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions, it was the white armbanders who were doing the persecution and murder.

These men were usually Lithuanian army veterans or members of the Sajunga, which was a rifle club.

source:Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Jerusalem.

The Jewish men had to do forced labour on the estate of Baron von Ropp's son and successor Julius. Then, on 31 July 1941, they had to assemble at the synagogue from where they were taken on trucks to Morkakalnis, about 2 km. from the centre of Pakruojis.

The only Jews who were in Pakroy at the outset of the invasion and who were not murdered, was a group of about 30 young men who were arrested and taken to the Shavel Prison. Some of them survived the Shavel Ghetto and after its liquidation they were taken to Stuthoff and Dachau in Germany (for instance, Dovid Katz and Kalman Luria). Some survived –Dovid Katz came on aliya in 1948 after internment in an illegal immigrants camp in Cyprus; Kalman Luria came to South Africa in 1946 to his uncle and many years later came on aliya with his family.

Another group were members of a hachshara of the Polish Zionist youth movement, Hechalutz Hatzair, who fled Poland and after much wandering finally took refuge in Pakroy, actually living in the shul. They kept a kibbutz framework, doing agricultural work for local farmers. They too were removed to the Shavel Ghetto. One couple, Yellin, now live in Haifa.

Some of the Jewish men were shot across the new Jewish cemetery, on the bank of the river Kruoja, at the road leading to the village of Linksmuciai . This all took place on 10 July 1941, before the massacre at Morkakalnis of the other Jewish men. Amongst the men shot on the bank of the river Kruoja were Velve Rubinstein, Israel Epstein, Yankel Epstein, David Maisel, Sholem Zundel Maisel, Ben-Zion Abelovich, Yitzhak Leib Eliasson, Yitzhak Aronovich, Kalman Hotz, and Chaim Edelman. One of the killers was Jonas Dachola, a trusted employee at the flourmill of David Maisel.

paid by Rivka Shapiro-Igdal and Israel Igdalski, Chana Shapiro-Burk, Rachel Sherman and William Sands. Rachmiel Rubenstein was responsible for the design and the erection of the memorial stone.

to part 2